Leaked MSI slide mentions Arrow Lake Refresh — reignites hopes that LGA 1851 will last more than a single-generation

A leaked slide from MSI, explaining the Power Configurations for Intel's Arrow Lake series of CPUs, has been shared by a user on the popular Korean hardware forum Quasar Zone. Interestingly, the same slide mentions a possible "Arrow Lake-S Refresh" which was just rumored to be canceled some time ago.

Funnily enough, the slide has large watermarks clearly stating "MSI Confidential" and "NO Public Exposure," yet it is circulating freely on the Internet. To the left, we can see Power Delivery Configurations for Intel's upcoming Core Ultra 5K, 7K, and 9K families of processors.

The right side contains a few important notes, details and an RDC (Resource and Documentation Center) document codenamed "#730325" which details the platform design guide for a potential Arrow Lake S Refresh. The headline here is that Intel seems to have been in talks with board partners regarding a refresh for Arrow Lake. In fact, it appears the product was in development since OEMs were already designing the Power Delivery Profiles for these CPUs and upcoming Non-K SKUs.

However, to reiterate, many leakers still assert that Intel has pulled the plug on Arrow Lake Refresh. Most notably, Panzerlied, a Chiphell forum member renowned for leaking the initial specifications of the RTX 50 lineup, claims that Arrow Lake will be the only desktop offering from Intel until 2026. It is entirely possible that Intel could port Panther Lake next year to desktops under its Core Ultra 300 series: but that's mostly speculation on our part.

Intel has been following a one-year cadence in its desktop CPU department since the 12th Generation. Alder Lake launched in 2021, followed by Raptor Lake in 2022 and Raptor Lake Refresh in 2023. On the 24th of this month, Arrow Lake chips will hit shelves, but that begs the question, "Is this level of performance enough to hold back AMD for two years?". Even Intel says that the Zen 4-based Ryzen 7 7800X3D is 5-7% faster than its flagship Core Ultra 9 285K. Put two and two together and the Ryzen 7 9800X3D might deliver a bloodbath for Intel in gaming.

AMD releases a new generation every two years with Zen 6 projected to launch in 2026. Therefore, not all will be doom and gloom for Team Blue, but that's entirely dependent on how performant and efficient Arrow Lake is.